


hand in hand into the sea

by disastermovie



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Attempt at Humor, Autistic Goodsir, Cultural Differences, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Getting to Know Each Other, Hurt/Comfort, Misunderstandings, Selkies, frostyfuntime2k19
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:27:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21904465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disastermovie/pseuds/disastermovie
Summary: "Hello," he said, making her nearly jump out of her skin. "I’m Harry Goodsir. It’s nice to meet you."Silna had to swallow before she could respond. She was amazed she hadn’t choked yet. "Um. I’m Silna." She hesitated before taking his hand, but Harry just gave hers a firm shake before letting go. "So, uh. Do you come here often?"Silna suddenly wished that she’d choked on the shrimp.
Relationships: Harry D. S. Goodsir/Lady Silence | Silna
Comments: 7
Kudos: 47
Collections: janky franky's frosty fun time 2k19





	hand in hand into the sea

**Author's Note:**

> Written for day six of [Janky Franky's Frosty Funtime 2k19](https://frostyfuntime.tumblr.com/)! Today's prompt was **trade winds** , which... uh. Trade winds are used for travel? There's lots of transatlantic travel in this fic? So this fic totally fulfills that prompt yEp.
> 
>  **Update:** Now with art by Zoe, which you can and _should_ [reblog on Tumblr](https://spaceteenagers.tumblr.com/post/189816720091/keeping-her-eyes-on-the-coat-in-her-hands-she)!
> 
> Title from ["The Maiden and the Selkie" by Heather Dale](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR7QTKe1D7Q).

The lighting wasn’t great - they look all fuzzy in the dark, the only light coming from the street lamps above them. Her phone was at an awkward angle, but their faces were still in the frame, pushed into the right corner of the screen but looking perfectly happy to be there. Silna was laughing, though she can’t remember _what_ she was laughing at. Maybe she was just really happy. Harry is beside her, doe-eyes looking at the camera with a soft smile. His head is tilted so he can rest his cheek on her hair.

Silna makes a whining noise in the back of her throat, reminding her of a very pitiful dog, and turns around so she’s now laying face-down on the couch.

Ataata and Anaana are out visiting friends. Anaana tried inviting her to come along - though it mostly involved her trying to drag a brooding Silna from her pity-pile of throw blankets - until Ataata got Anaana to leave her be. She’d been all huffy about it, though Silna knew it was all out of love, and made toothless threats about how “I better not find you in the same place when I get back, Silna, really.”

Ataata had been nicer about it, ruffling her hair so she’d look at him. “Want me to steal some sweets for you,” he signed, grinning, “before Anaana notices?”

She snorted and shook her head, more tired than anything else, but she did lift her hand out of the blankets to sign _I love you_ to the both of them as they left. And now Silna is home alone, looking at several-month-old selfies of her and her ex like a teenager. It’s not like she’s going to _stop_ doing that.

She aimlessly scrolls through her photos some more, photos from around campus or downtown filling up most of early January. Silna had thought Toronto was a big city, but Edinburgh was something else entirely. She’d felt awed from her first day, when she looked off toward the hills above the skyline, at the goddamn _castle_ on the other side of the city.

She met Harry at a sushi bar off-campus. Silna had been alone, since she hadn’t made any real friends yet and wasn’t all that close with her roommates, but that was alright with her. She was only in her second week of classes and already wanted a break from people. She didn’t expect Harry, bundled up in a beanie and fur coat, cheeks all red, grin wide as he stepped inside. The staff seemed happy to see him - a regular, then - and they chatted. He slipped his beanie off, revealing dark, fluffy curls that matched his beard.

Silna hadn’t meant to stare; when he turned, their eyes met. Silna quickly looked back to the chef who’d been trying to catch her attention for the past few seconds.

She did her best to ignore the heat rising in her cheeks, along with the handsome man who was now seated just one chair away from her. She was mostly successful, able to get through the ordeal of ordering without anymore problems, and she was sure the man had brushed away her staring by the time she got her food.

Of course, that was when he’d turned to her, extending a hand. “Hello,” he said, making her nearly jump out of her skin. “I’m Harry Goodsir. It’s nice to meet you.”

Silna had to swallow before she could respond. She was amazed she hadn’t choked yet. “Um. I’m Silna.” She hesitated before taking his hand, but Harry just gave hers a firm shake before letting go. She isn’t sure if her hand was left tingling or if she’s looking back on the memory with too much fondness. “So, uh. Do you come here often?”

Silna suddenly wished that she’d choked on the shrimp.

Harry, instead of laughing or using a bad pick-up-line back, just grinned. “Yes, actually! It’s one of my favorites. I always come here, when I visit town. Have you been here before?”

“No, no. It’s my first time here. I like it, but I can’t compare it to anywhere else; it’s only my second restaurant off-campus.” She fumbled with her chopsticks. “You’re visiting, you said?”

“Oh, yes. I’m from Orkney, up north, but I’m staying with friends for a bit. And you?”

“I’m from Toronto. Well-” She considered, gaze wandering a bit, away from Harry’s eyes looking at her through his oversized glasses. “I’m studying in Toronto, but I’m from Iqaluit. It’s in Nunavut, in northern Canada. This is my first time outside of the country. I’m just here for the semester.” Her eyes fell to his coat, now resting on the back of the chair, the fur a dark brown-gray that she immediately recognized. “Oh! Is that sealskin?”

Harry startled. He glanced down at it himself, before looking back up at her, blinking. “You recognize it?”

Silna nodded, giving him a small smile. “Yeah, I’d recognize that anywhere. They’re common in Nunavut, but I wasn’t expecting to see one in Scotland.”

“You’d be surprised.” He seemed to relax, a tension that Silna hadn’t noticed leaving his shoulders as he picked up his chopsticks. He smiled at her, again. He suddenly looked a bit shy. “So, what are you studying at uni?”

They’d talked for nearly an hour, about how Silna’s studies in medical school were going and what were Harry’s favorite things in town, their plates long empty by the time the wait staff kindly urged them to give up their seats. Silna somehow plucked up the courage to ask for his number, and they’d agreed to meet again, Harry promising to take her around the city. They’d ended up going to a seafood restaurant across town for the first date (all of the restaurants they went to were seafood, whenever she let Harry choose, which was almost always), the Royal Botanical Gardens for their second (her heart squeezes at the photo of Harry standing in front of the giant lily pads, his excited voice shouting, _They can grow up to nine feet wide, Silna! Imagine!_ ), and Surgeons’ Hall for their third.

Harry kissed her on that one, his fingers entwined in hers. Silna hasn’t kissed many people, but Harry’s kisses were the best, even their slightly stumbling first. She hadn’t expected it to be in front of a stuffed sheep with creepy glass eyes in a clear case. It was still oddly romantic, in its own way.

She had more photos from the museum than she’d ever need - more photos from all their dates running around Edinburgh than she _wants_ right now. It’s been almost four months since she’d come home. If she wasn’t going to delete these photos before, she certainly isn’t going to now.

They said “I love you” around the one month mark, and Silna felt so happy throughout that next month. By the third, she’d started hinting about meeting someone to her parents. They’d been happy for her, if not a bit frustrated that she never told them too much. She still wasn’t sure what was going to happen between her and Harry when she went back home. She knew that they’d have to talk about it, eventually, but they had time. 

Silna liked listening to Harry tell her about the waters of the Orkney islands or the antics his nephews and nieces would get into, while she told him about her own family and the Nunavut weather ( _We have two seasons, cold and colder_ ), resting her head on his chest and playing with his fingers. He had an interesting case of simple syndactyly on both hands, each of his fingers connected to the other by skin and making his hands look literally webbed, though they didn’t seem to bother him at all. Silna took to kissing the skin when they were alone; Harry always got so flustered, the flush rising to his cheeks before he cupped Silna’s cheek to ask for a kiss.

She finds another selfie of them. They’re holding hands, Silna smiling softly at the camera while Harry is fast asleep on her shoulder, on the couch in her flat’s living room. They were dating for four months, by then. Silna was leaving in May, right after finals. She figured that if there was any time to talk to him, it was then, before a million other things could come up to distract Silna from this conversation that they needed to have.

“Harry,” she’d said on _that_ day. They were taking a stroll through Old Town, hands entwined, enjoying a rare sunny day. “You know how I’m leaving in a few weeks?”

Harry squeezed her hand and hummed. Silna squeezed back, knocking their shoulders together. “Well, I really do like you.”

He turned to beam at her. “I really like you, too.”

Silna kissed his cheek. “And I’m happy with you. I love you. I was just wondering, if you’d like to…”

She wasn’t sure _why_ she struggled with the words so much. It was a simple question - _Would you like to try a long-distance relationship?_ \- but she just hadn’t been able to get the words out. She stalled. As she looked around to avoid Harry’s eyes, Silna noticed a brown lump of fur on the ground a few steps behind them.

“Oh, I’ll get it,” she said, quickly, letting go of Harry’s hand to pick up his coat for him. She realized that she’d never actually held it in her hands, before. She’d touched it when it was on Harry, and the fur would get caught between their joined hands or under Silna’s arm around his waist, but she’d never felt the full weight of it. It was surprisingly heavy and somehow smoother than any other sealskin she’d touched. It always had a slight sheen to it, but up close, it shimmered in the sunlight. She sometimes saw it hanging off of her door and thought it looked wet; when she absentmindedly ran her fingers through it, then, it was dry and cool beneath her hands.

Keeping her eyes on the coat in her hands, she collected herself. “Harry, I wanted to ask you if you’d like to keep things going between us, even after I go back home. I’ve been so happy these past few months, and I know that I make you happy too. I love being with you and…” She handed him the coat. “We’re good together. We could make it work.”

Harry took it slowly. When Silna looked back up, he was smiling. Their hands brushed. He laughed, a quiet thing, as his cheeks got all pink. Then he turned around and left without a word.

It’s the weirdest way that Silna’s ever been broken up with.

She tosses her phone onto the other side of the couch before covering her head with the fluffiest blanket she has. Harry never answered her calls after that, or her texts, and she figured she should take the hint once finals rolled around. It got better once she came home, but she still has days like these, where another one of her friends from high school or a (formerly) baby cousin starts posting about their wedding plans and Silna is sent into a self-pity-spiral. She _knows_ that it’s ridiculous. School starts up again soon; she can’t wallow in it forever.

And she should _really_ get over Harry at some point. He obviously had done so months ago, when he left her standing in the middle of Edinburgh and never called back, like all their time together wasn’t even worth a break-up text. And yet-

A knock on the door breaks through Silna thoughts. She tries sinking further into the couch. Maybe if she just ignores them, they’ll go away.

So she waits. Several seconds pass, fifteen, thirty. She sighs in relief.

And then they knock again.

“ _Ugh_ , fine.” Silna finds her way out of the blankets, though she wraps the fluffy one around her shoulders like a cape as she drags her feet to the door. “I’m coming, hang on.” She figures that it’s probably a neighbor when she opens the door.

A smiling Harry Goodsir standing on her doorstep, _naked as the day he was born_ , is not what she expected. “Silna!”

Silna lets out a scream that's more of a horrified squeak.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” he says, “but your home is actually very hard to find! I asked several people and I kept getting directed to police stations. I actually got sent to a hospital, once, _that_ was interesting-”

He goes to adjust his glasses, which is the only thing he’s wearing. Silna might find it funnier if she weren’t so busy trying to understand why Harry is at her house in Iqaluit, completely naked, his coat the only thing he has. And he hasn’t even put the damn thing on, which makes Silna suddenly remember that it’s six degrees celsius and Harry is _not_ dressed for this or any weather. “I- You- _Get in here_ ,” she says, grabbing Harry by the arm and dragging him inside.

Silna slams the door and pulls off her blanket to wrap it around Harry. She tries warming him up by rubbing her hands up and down his arms, but she blinks when she realizes that he’s not cold at all.

Harry doesn’t seem to notice, as he’s been talking the entire time. “My mother thought it was very romantic, the speech during the walk and everything. And my brothers are so excited to meet you! Archie has had his coat buried up near Aberdeen, upwards of a year and a half, he’s shocked, you know. Robert’s a bit miffed that I got married before him-”

“ _What_.”

“Robert, he’s my second youngest brother, remember? He’s still very happy to see me off, and is _very_ interested in visiting someday, he hasn’t met anyone of us outside of Scotland-”

Silna grabs his face, desperately, and pulls his head down a bit so that they’re at eye-level. “Harry.”

Harry’s still grinning. “Yes?”

“You said you got married.”

“Oh, yes, I did.” Then he _giggles_. Silna needs to lay down. Is this a weird dream? This has to be a weird dream. She lets go of Harry to pinch herself; it hurts. Nothing changes.

“Fuck.”

Harry finally seems to _react_ to something, brows furrowing as he takes Silna’s arm in hand. “Are you alright?” he asks, gently rubbing at the place she just pinched.

Silna opens and closes her mouth several times. Harry looks at her behind his ridiculous glasses, eyebrows furrowed in concern. It reminds her of nights in Edinburgh, holding hands and kissing under street lamps. Their faces are so close, now, and Harry’s eyes are still so brown, but he’s still completely naked underneath the blanket and Jesus _Christ_ -

“Okay. Harry? I need to ask you something.”

“Of course.”

“It’s several questions, actually. First, _why are you naked_?”

“I couldn’t fit much under my sealskin, obviously.”

“ _Please_ explain.”

Harry blinks. “Well, a seal can’t carry a suitcase across the Atlantic.”

“...You’re not a seal.”

“Only sometimes!”

Silna stares at him blankly.

“...Why do you keep pinching yourself?”

“Because I have no idea what the _fuck_ is going on right now!” She yanks her arm away from Harry as she stumbles back. He startles, pulling the blanket a little closer to himself, eyes wide. “You haven’t talked to me in _four months_ , then you just appear _completely nude_ at my _house_ like everything’s _fine_!”

Harry has the sense to look a little sheepish. “I _am_ sorry about that. I was so excited that I quite forgot that phones aren’t waterproof, but then I had to go tell my family and get things together that finding a new phone rather slipped my mind.” He bites his lip. “I would’ve called you sooner, if it bothered you so.”

Silna considers. He broke his phone _twice_ while they were dating, so him doing it a third time doesn’t surprise her, but that also doesn’t explain literally anything else. “Did you, Harry? Really?” She can’t keep the bitterness out of her voice and she doesn’t really want to. “‘Cause what it seemed like _to me_ is that when I tried talking about our relationship, you just walked away from me without saying anything, or trying to get back in contact with me at all. You couldn’t find a phone _anywhere_ to text me, at least? Or do you think just _ghosting me_ is an appropriate way to break up with someone?”

“I-” Harry opens and closes his mouth a few times. “ _What_?”

Silna waves her arms around. “What? What _wasn’t_ clear about that, Harry? You broke up with me!”

Now Harry is the one to step away from her, mouth open. “Silna, I didn’t-” He shakes his head. “I didn’t break up with you.”

And now Silna is just tired. “Then what was I supposed to think? I wanted to try going long-distance, but when I tried explaining it, you just took your coat and _left_. What does that sound like to you?”

There’s a few moments of silence. Harry blinks at her some more, before looking down at the ground, then pulling his coat out from behind the blanket still around his shoulders. He stares at it for a bit, before mumbling, “Oh, dear.” He suddenly plops down on the arm of the couch, looking dejected. “I suppose that means you weren’t really proposing then…”

Silna, for her part, leans heavily against the wall. “You thought I was _proposing_.”

Harry grimaces and won’t look at her. “This makes things awkward.” He lets go of the blanket to run a hand through his hair. It falls down a bit, revealing a freckled shoulder, along with a growing flush on his skin. “There’s been a miscommunication.” He swallows. “Among… my people, someone returning their sealskin is a marriage proposal. I assumed that, since you recognized it so early on, you must’ve known that, too, but I hadn’t thought… And I told my _family_ , and _then_ … Oh, this is-” He made a little noise and covered his very red face.

“Your… people,” says Silna slowly.

Harry, still hiding his face, nods.

“You mean in Orkney? It’s some tradition over there?”

Voice muffled behind his hands, he answers, “Among selch in general, actually.”

“...Come again.” Her voice cracks.

Harry peeks over his fingers to look at her, glasses all smudged. “It’s a tradition among selkies?”

“ _Selkies_?”

They stare at each other. Silna’s brain has decided to stop working entirely, while Harry’s hands fall to his lap and the blanket falls onto the couch. The only thing keeping Harry barely modest is his sealskin in his lap. His jaw is practically on the floor.

“Oh,” he says. “Oh, oh my _god_ ,” and falls back onto the couch cushions. Distantly, Silna is grateful that at least the blanket is still underneath him. After another few moments, he says, “ _You_ _didn’t know_ , did you?”

Silna opens her mouth to say something, but finds that she’s forgotten both of her languages. Probably the third, too, with her hands hanging limp at her sides.

“You- We have to- Alright.” Harry sits up again, looking at Silna again. He looks a bit pale. “Silna. I’m a selkie.”

It takes a few tries, which mostly involves Silna wheezing, before she can speak again. “Selkies aren’t real.” It comes out sounding like a question.

Harry makes a face that Silna can’t read. He looks back down at the coat in his lap, playing with the edge, bouncing his leg a bit. “Okay.” He stands abruptly, before deciding that _now_ is the time to put his coat back on. Silna doesn’t even get the chance to register what’s going on or even say anything, when Harry wraps it tightly around his torso, pulls up the hood, and-

Silna blinks. Looks down at the ground, before opening her mouth. All that comes out is a squeak as her knees buckle and she slides to the ground.

The seal in the space where Harry just was shimmies toward her. It makes a slapping noise against the floor.

“No, _no_ , nonononono-” She scrambles back, though that doesn’t add much space between her and _the fucking seal in her living room_. “Stay there, you just _stay there_!”

The seal stays put. It _does_ let out a noise, a weird mix between a bark and a whine. Harry’s glasses slide off its nose as it watches her with weirdly human eyes.

Silna tries to catch her breath. It’s coming out in short pants, making her feel a bit lightheaded, and she’d very much like to lay down. Instead, she stays where she is, staring wide-eyed at the seal. Its fur is a speckled brown, the same as Harry’s coat, which he put on a second ago and Silna very nearly pinches herself again. She doesn’t.

The seal blinks at her. She squints. “... _Harry_?”

The seal barks. Happily, Silna would call it, if a seal could do that, and she’s not sure how she should be referring to it- him?- or if she’s really just in the world’s worst idea of a joke.

She keeps watching _the seal_ until her breathing has slowed down enough for her to not feel faint. “Okay,” she whispers, mostly to herself. “Okay, I’m gonna just…” Her hand is trembling when she reaches out. The seal stays very still, not taking its weird eyes off of her, even when Silna’s hand meets the top of its head. Its eyes _do_ close as she starts to scratch its head very gently, and the seal pushes into her touch.

“You’re real. You’re _very_ real, okay.”

The seal makes a sound that’s _almost_ a purr.

Silna swallows. Her heart is still racing. The thought crosses her mind that this is _very much not possible_ , but she still finds herself shakily telling the seal, “Harry, I need to have a human conversation with you.”

The seal - Harry, she guesses, though she isn’t sure if she believes it or not - opens its eyes again. There’s a beat where they just stare at each other before it does a weird sort of shimmy on the floor. Then Silna’s hand is on the hood of the coat, while Harry is underneath it, on his belly in front of her.

“Hello,” he says, very quietly.

“Hi,” says Silna, voice steadier than she feels. “I think I believe you now.” She doesn’t take her hand back.

Harry smiles a bit, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Good. That’s good.” He fidgets with his sleeve a bit. “And I’m… I’m very sorry, about- Well, the shock just now, and… for everything else.”

“It’s fine. I mean, _no_ , it’s _not_ fine, I’m still upset and you really did hurt me-” She stops herself and takes a few deep breaths. Harry looks surprised when she pushes his hood back; she takes in his curls, feeling the strong urge to run her fingers through them. Instead, she rubs a hand down her face. “I’m going to accept the whole… the selkie thing, I think, but we’re _going_ to talk about it later.”

Harry nods quickly.

“And… Okay, you shouldn’t have assumed, but I- I can see where you got confused, so.” She looks down at him. Blinks. “Wait. These past four months, you thought- You thought we were _engaged_?”

“Married, actually. The sealskin… _thing_ , it’s everything at once. I know that it’s a bit different from how humans do it.” He seems to realize something, then, and places a hand on her knee. “Obviously, you didn’t _know_ , so that makes the marriage null and void, if that worries you.” He looks very sad as he says it.

Silna swallows. Harry’s hand is warm, over her sweatpants. “You seemed… very happy about it, earlier. The ‘being married’ thing.”

Harry just makes a face.

“Harry?”

He shakes his head, looking away from her. “It was all a misunderstanding, obviously, so it really doesn’t matter.”

“ _Harry_.” Silna hesitates, before placing her hand on top of Harry’s. He still looks miserable. She bites her lip, watching him as he looks at the ground. She imagines the past four months from his perspective- Silna giving him the sealskin back as a _marriage ceremony_ , Harry laughing and smiling (did he think that was a clear _yes_ to her?), going back to his presumably all-selkie family and giving them the news, then apparently swimming in seal form from northern Scotland to Nunavut, running around until he found her house in Iqaluit. And the whole time, he thought they were on the same page. She sighs.

Harry only looks resigned when Silna pulls her hand away, but then blinks owlishly at her when she moves to lay down on her back beside him. She turns to look at him, their noses almost brushing. “Here’s the thing- And I really need you to listen to this before saying anything, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Silna nods to herself. “So, you thought we were married and I thought we broke up. There was _plenty_ of miscommunication that brought us here. From now on, you don’t assume that I know things. We have to _talk_ , alright? And I _know_ we can do that, we’re great at talking, but we need to talk about things like _this_. Big, life-changing things. And our species - which, by the way, I’m definitely still human. Are you with me so far?”

Harry nods, lips parted slightly.

“Good. And we’re gonna get you a phone - I can find you a waterproof _and_ shatterproof case, so that something like not talking for several months doesn’t have to happen again. And I’m going back to Toronto in a few weeks, so we _really_ need to talk about that. Does that sound good to you?”

In a soft voice, Harry says, “It sounds like you still want to be with me.”

Silna glances down at his hand resting on the floor between them, before carefully placing her own on top of it again. “I think… I get that this was a misunderstanding. A _big one_ , and you still hurt me, but… We were good together, and I still like you, despite everything. I think I can try this again, long as we don’t make the same mistakes twice.”

Harry turns his hand over so that their fingers intertwine. He’s smiling again, a small, bright thing. “Yes. _Yes_ , I’d like that very much. No more misunderstandings and no more not using a phone for four months. I love you.” Then, quickly: “You don’t have to say it back, obviously, or still feel the same, I know it was very different for you and-”

“It’s _okay_ , Harry.” And Silna… isn’t quite sure what she feels. Everything’s gotten twisted up, but for the first time since the biggest misunderstanding of her _life_ , she feels better about them. Better about Harry, most of all. She’ll properly freak out about the selkie thing later. For now, she lets their noses brush, just a bit. “We’ll get back there, yeah? Just give me some time.”

Harry laughs a bit, sounding breathless. “Of course, yes. Take all the time you need.” He shifts a bit, to lay on his side, and jumps a bit. “ _Ow_ ,” he says, reaching into his coat.

“What?” says Silna. Then Harry’s hand reappears and she can’t say anything else.

Harry looks sheepish again, turning the little black box around in his hand. “Um. I bought this some time ago, during the whole confusion. It’s not an obligation, you already know that, but I did think that…” He’s mumbling at this point. “That you might want to get married in the human way, as well. That’s, uh, partially why it took so long. You humans have very expensive wedding traditions, you know.”

He opens the box, but tries to close it immediately after, like it was just part of his fidgeting. Silna grabs his hand before he can do so. She stares. There’s no big diamond; instead, the band is in a twisting design, one strand in plain silver and the other covered in little glittering stones. It’s beautiful. It’s exactly the sort of thing that Silna _would_ want, if she was actually getting married.

The giggle bubbles out of her throat. Harry opens his mouth as if to ask what’s so funny, but Silna just turns to bury her face in his neck, laughing hard, now. She wraps an arm around his shoulders. “Oh my _god_ ,” she gasps out, pulling back to hold Harry’s face in her hands. “Harry, _oh my god_.”

He smiles shyly at her. “...Is this a good thing?”

Silna kisses him.

Harry immediately leans into it. Oh, wow, Silna missed this; Harry’s kisses, the way he cupped her cheek. Like he does now, a little slower than usual. More unsure. She pulls back and presses their foreheads together. “Yes, Harry, it’s a good thing.”

Harry is anything but hesitant in the next kiss. Then the next, and the _next_ , as he wraps an arm around her waist to pull her closer, the box digging into her hip, and Silna doesn’t mind enough to tell him to move-

She recognizes, a few seconds too late, the sound of the door knob turning. Something hits the floor with a clatter.

Silna pulls back from Harry quickly and has to push him back when he goes to follow, seemingly unaware of Silna’s _mother_ standing in the doorway with her jaw on the floor, the contents of her bag spilled out on the ground.

“Hi, Anaana.”

Anaana’s eyes fly over them, her daughter on the floor, the still mostly-naked man next to her, how _very close_ they are, and - finally - the little black box still in Harry’s hand.

“Oh,” says Harry, before giving her a little wave. “Hello, there.”

Anaana _screams_.

**Author's Note:**

> Some fun writing notes!
> 
>   * "Selch" is another word for "selkie" in Scots (more specifically, "selkie" is actually the diminutive form of "selch"). The more y'know!
>   * The taxidermied sheep they kiss in front of is Dolly the sheep, the first ever cloned animal who died in 2003 and is currently on display in Surgeon's Hall.
>   * Balancing the happy ending with how things aren't immediately back to normal was really fun for me to figure out, and I'm proud of how the ending turned out.
>   * I did a lot of research on Edinburgh for their dates and now I just really wanna visit someday.
> 

> 
> I'm on tumblr at [diydumpsterdiving](https://diydumpsterdiving.tumblr.com/).


End file.
